Song:Heaven Must Have Sent You
Album:The Motown Anthology
The Elgins were a lesser Motown group that had their biggest hit in 1966 with Heaven Must Have Sent You. They are not to be confused with the Los Angeles doo wop group and The Temptations even used the name The Elgins for a while. This group started in Detroit in 1962 as The Downbeats. Johnny Dawson, Cleo Miller and Robert Fleming had backed up Marv Johnson and recorded some of their own singles. Meanwhile, Sandra Edwards had recorded the single It's Going To Be Hard Times for Motown as Sandra Mallet and The Vandellas in 1962. In 1966, Motown made her lead singer of The Downbeats and The Downbeats recorded the Holland-Dozier-Holland song Darling Baby for VIP. Berry Gordy insisted on the name change to The Elgins. Darling Baby reached #4 on the R & B Singles chart despite minimal promotion. Heaven Must Have Sent You reached #9 on the R & B Singles chart and #50 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Elgins recorded an album but split up in 1967. The Elgins had potential to be much bigger stars. You can get all their recordings on this 2CD British import comp but you can also get Heaven Must Have Sent You on plenty of Motown various artists comps. Of course Bonnie Pointer had a big hit with her 1979 cover of Heaven Must Have Sent You that encouraged fans ro find the original version. It also encouraged Johnny Dawson to reform a version of The Elgins and they recorded with British soul maven Ian Levine. This video has The Elgins performing Heaven Must Have Sent You for Ian Levine 1989.
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